J. Konrath - Cherry Bomb

By the time I was in the truck I was wailing louder than the police cars that were surrounding us.

NOW THAT WAS GREAT. The only thing missing was sound. It would have been wonderful to hear Jack’s cries of anguish, Alan’s muffled screams, the zap of electricity. But then, the other patrons in the coffee shop might have complained.

Alex closes her laptop, then closes her eyes, reliving the scene in her head. Her favorite part had to be when Jack began CPR, not knowing that each time she pressed Alan’s chest, blood squirted out his ass. When she socked Phin-that was priceless too. The girl can hit hard. Jack was too self-absorbed to see Phin probe the inside of his mouth, pull out a tooth.

Yes, it worked much better than Alex could have hoped.

Now to concentrate on the next victim, the next phase of the plan.

Alex finishes her coffee, then gets back on the road. An hour later, she’s standing on the street corner in Chicago, hood up, sunglasses on, hands jammed into her pockets.

Winter will be here soon. Alex won’t miss it. Growing up in the Midwest, she has long outlived her fondness for snow and ice.

It will be so nice to go someplace where the only ice comes in drinks.

She stands there for twenty minutes before hearing a rumbling, up the street. Alex checks her watch as the truck passes by. Right on time. The first time she saw it, two weeks ago, was pure luck. Seeing it twice, same place, same time, isn’t luck. It’s a pattern.

It motors past, turning where it did before, and Alex jams her hands back into her pockets and heads for her car, parked in an alley a block away. She climbs in and heads north.

Ninety minutes later she’s back in her hotel room in Milwaukee, using the Internet to instruct her in the finer points of using cell phones as radio transmitters. Then she calls Samantha to plan their date.

“Is your neighbor going to babysit?”

“She said sure. Do you have a car?”

Alex considers the Prius, the dead yuppie still in the backseat.

“No. Do you?”

“Sure. Want me to pick you up at your place?”

Alex isn’t keen on letting Sam know where she’s staying.

“I’m already downtown. Why don’t we meet at a mall? Isn’t there one called Bayshore?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you at J. Jill. Great store. You’ll love it. When?”

“An hour?”

“Excellent!”

“Quick question. Have you ever done a bachelor party?”

“You mean like go to the guy’s house, give them lap dances, pick up twenties out of the groom’s mouth with my hoo-ha?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Once. Didn’t pay too well, and the guys were assholes.”

“Did you do it outlaw, no agency?”

“No, I went through a local place, called Laugh-O-Grams. They also send birthday party clowns and stuff. You thinking of trying that?”

“Just keeping my options open. Looking forward to seeing you.”

And Alex is. Men are fine, but women have their own par tic u lar flavor, and in many ways are more fun. Alex can’t wait to get into Samantha’s pants. It will be the perfect end to a perfect day.

“JACK! PUT ON YOUR DAMN SEAT BELT!”

The Bronco jumped a curb, clipped a mailbox, and then fishtailed back onto the street. We had three or four squad cars behind us, sirens blaring, hot pursuit. I had a bump on my forehead from whacking it against the dashboard. Not what I’d been hoping for. I wanted to get thrown through the front windshield and splattered on the pavement. Let it end already.

Phin reached over, his hand seeking my seat belt. Not the easiest thing to do while cruising fifty miles an hour down a heavily populated side street. I shoved his arm away. We were in a residential area, single-family homes with carefully manicured front lawns. A place where you’d get married and settle down.

Something I’d fucked up twice.

He stopped trying to save my life and instead fiddled with his police band. I caught the word Staties.

“They’re calling in the state cops. We’re screwed.”

I didn’t care. Getting arrested was the least of my worries.

“Come on, Jack. Give me a suggestion here.”

“Ditch the car.”

He made an aggressive lane change, my shoulder bouncing off the passenger door.

“And try to make it on foot? We have to lose them first.”

“You can’t lose them. Air support is next. They’ll plot your route, take out your tires, follow you until you run out of gas. It’s over.”

“I say when it’s over.”

Typical macho bullshit. I wasn’t surprised. But then Phin did do something that surprised me. He tapped the brakes, jerked the wheel, and cut across someone’s driveway, the four-wheel drive digging trenches in the sod.

I flinched when we hit the backyard fence, popping onto someone else’s property. We bounced across their front lawn, back onto the street, and then Phin did the same thing all over again.

“You’re going to kill someone.” I was clinging to the armrest.

We narrowly missed a swing set, Phin overcompensated, and we spun out, crunching through a dog house that I sincerely hoped was empty. Phin hit the gas, the Bronco lurched forward, and we tore through another backyard, down an embankment, and into a cornfield. This was feed corn, beige and dry and standing over ten feet tall. Rows, acres, miles, an endless ocean.

Driving through it was agonizing, because we couldn’t see any farther than the hood. At any moment it could have ended and we’d be in the middle of the street. Or in a school playground during recess.

Phin didn’t let up. He pushed the accelerator, ears and husks banging against the windshield with a rhythmic thump-thump-thump-thump-thump. First came some stress fissures. Then bigger cracks. Then the glass became one giant spiderweb, impossible to see through.

Phin kept the engine gunned.

“Okay. That’s enough.”

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.

“Phin-” I warned.

He ignored me, his fate determined, his jaw set.

“Goddamn it, Phin!”

He swerved hard, knocking me into him, the truck doing a 180, 360, 720, before stalling to a stop.

“Finally start caring again?” he asked.

I pushed myself off him.

“Asshole.”

Phin shifted in his seat, frowning at me. “I’m the asshole? You’re the one who wanted to give up.”

I turned on him, teeth bared, filling with rage.

“You’ve already given up. You aren’t living. You’re just existing. You don’t care about anything.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Jack. That I’m here with you because I don’t care about anything.”

Sure, he was here for me. And I just threw my career away to protect him. I didn’t see him kissing my ass for that.

“You’ve got it easy,” I said, low and mean. “Some of us have to deal with the consequences of our actions. Maybe I should just drop out of society. Start robbing banks. What’s the current street price of coke, Phin? We can get stoned out of our minds and go knock over a liquor store. The hell with tomorrow, right?”

Phin went very cold. “I hurt,” he said evenly.

“Welcome to the club.”

“I physically hurt, Jack. It’s like someone is stabbing me in the side. All day. Every day. The cocaine helps.”

“I bet it does.”

“You want to compare losing some loved ones to dying of cancer?”

“How would you know? You don’t love anyone.”

“You’re wrong. I love-”

“Don’t fucking say it,” I warned. “Don’t you dare fucking say it.”

He stared at me, hard, then slowly nodded. “I get it.”

I wanted to hit him. “You don’t get shit. You think I’m afraid to get close to you because I’m afraid I’ll lose you? Get over yourself. I don’t want to get involved with a drug-sniffing loser.”